Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2006 Nov;13(11):1181-4.
doi: 10.1128/CVI.00203-06. Epub 2006 Sep 6.

National serosurvey of cytomegalovirus in Australia

Holly Seale  1 , C Raina MacIntyre, Heather F Gidding, J L Backhouse, Dominic E Dwyer, Lyn Gilbert
Affiliations

National serosurvey of cytomegalovirus in Australia

Holly Seale et al. Clin Vaccine Immunol. 2006 Nov.

Abstract

In anticipation of the development of a vaccine against cytomegalovirus (CMV), we conducted a large, nationally representative serosurvey to examine the seroprevalence of CMV in Australia. Sera were collected opportunistically from laboratories around Australia. Age- and gender-representative samples were tested for CMV antibody. The population-weighted rate of CMV seropositivity in subjects between 1 and 59 years of age was 57% (95% confidence interval, 55.2 to 58.6%). An association between CMV seroprevalence and increasing age was recognized; however, little overall difference in seroprevalence between the sexes was found. The finding that high levels of CMV exposure occur in the first few years of life suggests that for a universal vaccination program to have maximal impact, the vaccine would need to be delivered to infants and have a long duration of protective efficacy. This is the first national serosurvey looking at cytomegalovirus in the Australian community. This study provides valuable information that can be used to examine the incidence of infection in the community and help focus the administration of a future CMV vaccine to appropriate target populations.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

FIG. 1.
FIG. 1.
CMV seroprevalence by age group in Australia. T bars represent 95% CIs.
FIG. 2.
FIG. 2.
CMV seroprevalence in males by age group in Australia. T bars represent 95% CIs.
FIG. 3.
FIG. 3.
CMV seroprevalence in females by age group in Australia. T bars represent 95% CIs.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Boeckh, M., and P. Ljungman. 1998. Cytomegalovirus infection after bone marrow transplantation, p. 215-227. In R. Bowden, C. Paya, and P. Ljungman (ed.), Transplant infections. Lippincott-Raven, Philadelphia, Pa.
    1. Cannon, M. J., and K. Davis. 2005. Washing our hands of the congenital cytomegalovirus disease epidemic. BMC Public Health 5:70. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Dobbins, J. G., J. A. Stewart, G. J. Demmler, et al. 1992. Surveillance of congenital cytomegalovirus disease, 1990-1991. Morb. Mortal. Wkly. Rep. 41(SS-2):35-39. - PubMed
    1. Enright, A. M., and C. G. Prober. 2004. Herpesviridae infections in newborns: varicella zoster virus, herpes simplex virus, and cytomegalovirus. Pediatr. Clin. N. Am. 51:889-908. - PubMed
    1. Falagas, M. E., and D. R. Snydman. 1995. Recurrent cytomegalovirus in disease in solid organ transplant recipients. Transplant. Proc. 27:34-37. - PubMed

Publication types

Substances